In Little Saigon, women step forward

April 15, 2014

Updated April 20, 2014 10:10 a.m.

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Gia Ly is co-owner of Crepe Corner and family business Zen Vegetarian Restaurant in Westminster. She is also an owner of Arrow GTP, a company that works with Google to produce virtual interior tours of buildings on Google maps. JEBB HARRIS, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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Gia Ly is co-owner of Crepe Corner and family business Zen Vegetarian Restaurant in Westminster. She's also the first female chair of the Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce in Orange County. JEBB HARRIS, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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Bele Nguyen is owner of a State Farm agency in Fountain Valley. She had the chance to open up her agency in Anaheim but decided she wanted to stay in Fountain Valley so she could help her community. She says roughly 90 percent of her clientele is of Vietnamese descent. JEBB HARRIS, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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Crepes are a favorite at Crepe Corner in Westminster. Gia Ly is co-owner of Crepe Corner and family business Zen Vegetarian Restaurant. JEBB HARRIS, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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Bele Nguyen is owner of a State Farm agency in Fountain Valley, where she has a sweets bar for the children of clients. She had the chance to open up her agency in Anaheim but decided she wanted to stay in Fountain Valley so she could help her community. She says roughly 90 percent of her clientele is of Vietnamese descent. JEBB HARRIS, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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Bele Nguyen gets a makeup touch-up from staff member Cindy Duong before having her picture made at the State Farm agency in Fountain Valley which she owns. At right are Nguyen's daughter Emma Pham, 6, with Jessica Truong and employees Huyen Tran and Trang Tran. Nguyen had the chance to open up her agency in Anaheim but decided she wanted to stay in Fountain Valley. JEBB HARRIS, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Gia Ly is co-owner of Crepe Corner and family business Zen Vegetarian Restaurant in Westminster. In addition she is also an owner of Arrow GTP, a company which works with Google to produce virtual interior tours of buildings which appear on Google maps. She's also the first female chair of the Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce in Orange County. JEBB HARRIS, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Gia Ly is co-owner of Crepe Corner and family business Zen Vegetarian Restaurant in Westminster. She is also an owner of Arrow GTP, a company that works with Google to produce virtual interior tours of buildings on Google maps. JEBB HARRIS, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Vietnamese Americans tend to be more upbeat about their children's futures compared to other Asian-American groups, according to a Pew Research Center study released in 2012. Nearly half expect their children's standard of living to be much better than theirs when their children reach their age.

By the numbers

$53,400: median annual household income for Vietnamese Americans, 18 and over

$49,800: median annual household income for U.S. population, 18 and over

19%: share of Vietnamese Americans with bachelor's degrees, 25 and over

18%: share of U.S. population with bachelor's degrees, 25 and over

Source: Pew Research Center, 2012

Gia Ly darts in from Bolsa Avenue through the doors of her family’s Westminster restaurant and hawk-eyes the tables and corners – all with a few screen swipes and finger pinches on her iPhone.

Ly is navigating a virtual tour she set up to promote her family’s businesses, Zen Vegetarian Restaurant and Crepe Corner, as she sits right outside. Winds whip three flags – Californian, American and former Vietnamese – flying in front of the establishments.

“In Little Saigon, mom-and-pop owners don’t think of marketing dollars, or how to compete with larger restaurants. This will help them with (Google) ranking and indexing,” says Ly, who contracts with the search giant to sell similar tours to small businesses.

The 34-year-old businesswoman epitomizes Orange County’s modern Vietnamese American female entrepreneur, one who oftentimes straddles two worlds. In this case, Zen, which she co-owns with her immigrant parents, shows her allegiance to cultural roots, and her work with the online tours reveals more corporate, go-getter chops.

Women like Ly are among the so-called “1.5 generation,” an in-between group that immigrated to the U.S. when they were younger but have adopted both Vietnamese and American traditions.

This generation tends to take on more leadership roles and are more involved in the community, says Linda Vo, associate professor for Asian American studies at UC Irvine.

“You’re seeing that in the Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce,” Vo says. “It’s a new kind of generation. (Before,) they weren’t that active in doing outreach outside of ethnic businesses.”

FEMALE ADVANCEMENT

As the first woman to chair the Fountain Valley-based Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce (her first term started this year), Ly symbolizes the growing presence and changing dynamics of female business ownership in the local Vietnamese community, the largest outside of Vietnam.

While research on this topic is limited, anecdotal evidence suggests a rise in Vietnamese American women who are going beyond the traditional business models such as restaurants and nail salons, to launch startups in less-traditional fields, including marketing and finance.

In their native country, wealth is on the rise, from the minting of the Vietnam’s first billionaire to the increasing presence of women in boardrooms. Behind China, it’s the fastest-growing economy in Asia.

An index of companies in Vietnam currently led by female CEOs has almost tripled in the past five years, gaining about twice as much as the nation’s benchmark VN Index, according to data compiled by Paris-based Intelligent Financial Research & Consulting and Bloomberg.

More pronounced advances can be seen in Southern California.

Women in general are outpacing men in college education, which can translate to higher earnings and more opportunities. There are more than 620,000 businesses owned by Asian American women in the U.S., an 80 percent jump since 2002, based on numbers from the the Center for American Progress, a public policy think tank in Washington, D.C.

Mix in the enduring influence of family legacy and the effects of the Vietnam War, and many in Little Saigon aren’t surprised to see women there making strides professionally.

“Women are a kind of rock, the pillar, the foundation,” says Dr. Tam Nguyen, who recently handed the reins of Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce to Ly. “Even though the war is over, some things continue.”

Following the fall of Saigon, Vietnamese refugees fled to the U.S. in waves. Lacking language skills but possessing technical ones, many families started their own businesses.

Within such ventures, mothers typically ran the finances and day-to-day operations while raising children as their husbands served as the face and name of the businesses, says Nguyen, whose family owns and runs Advance Beauty College, which has two locations.

As the war continued, many women found themselves in provider roles as the men helped the U.S. military effort or were imprisoned in Vietnam.

Fountain Valley entrepreneur Bele Nguyen says her mother’s struggles made an indelible impression on how she does business.

Her mom became the family breadwinner when her father was captured and jailed after serving as an American war ally. To make ends meet, she would buy and sell scrap textiles and tailored clothes.

“She worked her butt off,” says Nguyen, 38, who owns and runs a State Farm agency whose clientele is mainly Vietnamese. “She obviously influenced me. As family, you work hard to take care of your family.”

FAMILY FOOTPRINT

Mom’s typically quiet, yet powerful influence on the Little Saigon community is still evident today. But there are stark differences between mom and daughter entrepreneurs, mainly motivations and management styles.

Running traditional operations can be stressful because they’re competitive and margins are often slim, says Vo, the UCI professor.

“They often encourage them to go into professional occupations because they’re less of a headache,” she adds.

Tracy Pham’s mother started her nail and beauty-salon business as a means of survival, relying on street smarts instead of a formal education, says Pham, who works a corporate job and runs a modeling and entertainment agency on the side.

“For most of them, it was trial and error,” says Pham, 36. “With us in the younger generations, we think harder and longer before we dive in it. It’s not survival skills; it’s what we learned in school.”

Ly, of Zen, says her mother’s leadership is understated and subtle, while her father, who runs a local Vietnamese American media association, is more social.

She ended up absorbing both traits, which she says has helped her lead not only the family business but also make in-roads for her own venture, Arrow GTP, where she’s a partner. The company is one of 13 contractors working with Google to bring business-view, virtual tours to small firms, using the same technology that powers Google Street View.

Her two worlds converge often as she tries to sell the idea of virtual tours to more-traditional Vietnamese businesses in the area.

“I have a challenge with that,” Ly says. “For mom-and-pop, marketing is a luxury item. ... But if you’re customer-facing, this can take you higher professionally.”

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